After the Pool
Let's go back to the swimming pool metaphor for a moment. I suggested earlier that "reality," this life we come to lead as adults in society is in many ways like a giant swimming pool. Children aren't in the pool. "Growing up" means learning not only how to swim. It also means learning to accept the pool as All That Is. Meditation of any kind, including the Saltlick kind, slowly, gently teaches you how to step out of the pool. Yes, you discover there is life after the pool. One can relax, just hang out on the bank of the pool. Take some rays. Even begin to admire the scenery outside of the pool (yes, there is scenery outside of the pool). But we are such creatures of habit that even outside the pool, there is a danger. We can become so hooked on meditation that we create a new "pool", the "after the pool" pool. Whereas before, all we knew to do was swim for success in the old pool, we may become equally habituated to the new "pool" and wind up wanting to do nothing except Saltlicks all the time. A pool by any other name. People have known of this danger a long time. Especially old Eastern people. One of them put it this way: "All dualities arise from the One, but don't be attached even to this One." You meditate and manage to get out of the pool with its "manyness" (you vs. me, me vs. everything, etc.). Out of the pool, you glimpse a certain "oneness." Glimpses of that "One" can be very addictive. A good example is many of the well-intentioned people who wind up in monasteries. They lose sight of the fact that while they've broken their attachment to one pool, they only exchanged it for attachment to another pool. Sure, the new one is much, much larger, much more gratifying. Even successfully immersed in Saltlicks, one should try to remember that there is another step to be taken, beyond all pools. Back to Saltlick Contents |